I have the songs. essays, poems pretty much collected for the upcoming book, “Love Songs for Cynics.” JIM ALLRED has been doing the formatting. I spent quite a bit of time going through thumbdrives looking for illustrations to go with the written stuff. Almost 300 on one of them. I wanted them simple, rather than my usual overdrawn style. I selected and printed about 25. Almost done with that, I discovered I can reduce images, enabling me to have drawings done horizontally become vertical.

Who knew? Yeah, everyone. I also found my original version of collected works, mostly blues songs, copyrighted in 2007. WHAT?

I do have some songs that I sort of forgot about, didn’t include on my shuffle of songs I sing to myself and the road. Here’s a chunk from “The Place You’ve Saved in Your Heart:”

“Your heart’s hidden away from the light of the day, in a place that’s not shown in the charts; My heart’s hidden, too, but I’ve made room for you, in the place that I’ve saved in my heart.”

I have made numerous comments on numerous Instagram sites concerning the recent allegations about sexual abuse in the world of professional surfing. Shocking, but not surprising. Something that struck me was the not unexpected comments by those defending the man or men involved.

That there are predators and victims should not be a surprise to anyone. Not sure how sheltered you would have to be to not know about, witnessed, or, sadly, been any part of sexual abuse. Any role, including being the guy who believes there is some sick code that requires you to protect the perpetrators rather than the victim.

We live with our choices. Sorry, it seems to be true for most of us. To those who have no regrets, feel no remorse, particularly those who seem to brag about ‘conquests’ that are… Fuck it! You know someone with this twisted lack of morality, or, even basic humanity.

Anyway, thinking about this more than I am comfortable with. Later.

erwin@realsurfers.net. real suffered other on Instagram